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Amazon Web Services' (AWS') Glacier data deep freeze* is now available in the cloudy company's Australian region.

Glacier offers very cheap storage, but with the caveat of restore times that stretch into hours. The service is generally held to store data on tape.

When AWS opened in Australia has often said it intends to offer more of its services to its Australian customers, partly because government clients prefer their data to reside on Terra Australis, rather than jurisdictions where foreign powers might be able to handle their bits. Another reason AWS opened down under was latency: many customers complained that even the nearby Singapore region added too many milliseconds of transfer time.

Latency is presumably not a problem for Glacier users, so let's presume domestic demand for cold storage has led to its Antipodean introduction. Either that or AWS customers like the idea of plonking data down in a very, very, remote disaster recovery site.

Customers can do the same for their data warehouses, as AWS has also brought its RedShift service to Australia. ®

*Vulture south offers the term “data deep freeze” as more precise choice than 'cold storage', which is currently in vogue to describe cheap and slow flash used by the likes of Facebook.